The cookies entered in this year’s Dallas Morning News-Central Market Holiday Cookie Contest included a range of flavors as diverse as the state of Texas. Peanut butter, bacon, pumpkin and apricot were popular ingredients, as well as dulce de leche, coconut and, of course, lots of chocolate.

Resourceful contestants used convenience products such as jalapeño jelly, toffee popcorn and frozen puff pastry to make quick work of home-baked goodies in the Easy category. They honored traditions with family recipes, and strutted their stuff in the Decorated category.

Fittingly, in the year Big Tex rose again, a gingerbread cowboy dubbed Little Tex was chosen as Cookie Man.

“As a fifth-generation Texan, she had me at ‘Howdy,’ ” said chef Stephan Pyles, one of the judges.

The winners were chosen in early November at the Lovers Lane Central Market.

Now in its 18th year, the annual contest, co-sponsored by Central Market and Promised Land Dairy, raises funds to benefit The Dallas Morning News Charities. Entry fees have raised more than $20,000 over the years to help the hungry and homeless.

Three winners were chosen in each of five categories: Bar, Decadent, Decorated, Easy and Family. First-place winners got a $150 gift card from Central Market, second place got $100 and third place got $50.

Cravens, the winner of the Cookie Man category, which is judged on appearance only, took home a stack of cookbooks. Little Tex will serve as the contest mascot for the upcoming year.

While the judges sampled the cookies, the finalists and their guests gathered in the community room of Central Market to visit, swap recipes and taste one another’s cookies. Camaraderie with other bakers and the thrill of competition is what participants said motivated them to enter the contest.

“I like competitions, and especially cookies. They’re easy, an instant gratification dessert, very portable,” said finalist Jill Spears, 58, of Frisco, a 10-year veteran of the cookie contest.

“This event is a good morning to get together and see what other bakers are doing,” said Debbie Zuke of Garland. Now in her 60s, Zuke is also a familiar face in area cooking competitions and a former cookie contest winner.

Many participants find the event to be a way to honor mothers and grandmothers and the treasured recipes handed down to them. Three members of the Bustillos family — mom Phyllis and her daughters, Brenda and Sheila, entered.

“To make my experience baking for the contest really special, I used a yellow Fiestaware mixing bowl my grandmother gave me years ago,” said finalist Nelson Prater, 53, of Garland. “My grandmother had a little diner in Healdton, Oklahoma, back in the ’40s, and this mixing bowl came from there. I love making cookies in this bowl.”

The cookies, by the way, came in third in their category.

The judges, especially the first-timers, were impressed with the entries.

Amateur judges Sarah Burke and Jeff Pustejovsky, winners of the You Be the Judge contest, held their own with the culinary professionals, sampling and evaluating entries for the taste, texture and visual appeal that make a great cookie.

Burke has been following the contest for many years; her family holiday tradition now includes making a winning cookie from 2005 called A Quiet Little Mexican Bar to cap the tortilla soup and tamale dinner her family has every Christmas Eve.

“This year I’ll also be making some of the delicious and attractive cookies I judged,” she said.

Pustejovsky echoes her enthusiasm. “A lot of time and effort went into these entries. I could see any of them at a party at my house,” he said, grinning. “I had a blast doing this. I want to sign up for next year.”

A special-event planner and longtime competitor in local cooking contests, Rex Poland of Dallas has been tinkering with his winning Bar recipe for at least two years, and, in fact, held it back from State Fair competition with the cookie contest in mind.

His strategy worked, as the tart but sweet lemon bar spiffed up with apricot and coconut was a hit with the judges. A plus: The cookies are not expensive to make; with just a bit of sliced almonds “they don’t blow the nut budget,” he noted, and the recipe doesn’t require pricey chocolate.

Poland was fascinated by the chemical magic of baking from a young age. Growing up on the Gulf Coast, he learned to bake watching his mother and grandmother while he did his homework at the kitchen table. An avid blog follower and magazine reader, he likes to wind down by reviewing trends and recording recipes. He files hard copies in binders by subjects, such as seasonal, beach, barbecue, holiday and favorites. His collection goes back to the 1960s.

His holiday traditions include entertaining, featuring home-baked cookies, and presenting gifts of cookies to friends and co-workers. He was delighted to be included in the fun of the finals again. “It’s the quintessential way to kick off the holidays and the first big party of the season,” he said.

Decadent: Merritt Quigley, Dallas

Merritt Quigley, 28, of Dallas is an attorney with a commercial litigation firm. A three-time entrant in the contest, she won a first place for her Decadent chocolate-covered shortbread and also second place in Family for the Kitchen Sink cookies made from a recipe she remembers baking with her mother as a child.

During college and law school, Quigley developed a passion for baking as a way to relax. She frequently makes sweet gifts for family and friends. Year-round, she experiments with recipes and takes home-baked goodies to neighbors and co-workers.

Her best tip for other bakers is to pre-measure and lay out ingredients ahead. “Like a TV kitchen,” she noted. “That makes baking more enjoyable and easier to clean up.”

Quigley brought her 4-month-old son, Connor, with her to the event, much to the delight of other contestants who loved seeing a baby at the gathering. Both Quigley and her husband cook, and they look forward to sharing their interest with Connor as soon as he is old enough to help them in the kitchen.

“I’m looking forward to passing these recipes down to him,” she said. “And I can’t wait to be the snack mom for his teams.”

Decorated: Dianne Ragain, Dallas

Dianne Ragain won first place in the Decorated cookie category with a pecan and fondant-bedecked armadillo-themed cookie that wowed the judges. “I’ve had this little guy in my head for a long time, ever since I won a cheese ball contest with an armadillo design,” said the 54-year-old Dallas resident, who grew up in Oklahoma.

Ragain was taught to bake and encouraged to enter fair competitions in first and second grades by her mother, who often made cookies for Ragain and her friends. In the later years of her mother’s life, Ragain won ribbons at the State Fair of Texas using family recipes and posted them on the door of her mother’s nursing home room, much to her mom’s delight. “She got such a kick out of it,” Ragain said. “She put her heart and soul into her cooking. And she could not pass up a cookbook. She has an amazing collection of books going back to the ’20s.”

Ragain’s husband, Robert, has also been a Holiday Cookie Contest winner. After they married, he took an interest in baking and began entering contests. They sometimes compete against each other, and there have been times he has bested her. If there is anyone she’s willing to lose to, it’s him. And this year, he’s happy for her. “I’m a lucky man,” he said.

Easy: LeAnn Kite Hampton, Garland

First-time entrant LeAnn Kite Hampton, 57, of Garland has been reading about the contest for years, and, on a whim, posted a last-minute entry.

“I just made it before the deadline,” she said. Hampton sent in a pumpkin adaptation of an apple bar recipe she’d been making since her college years, her go-to fast and foolproof favorite that works well with whatever prepared fruit butter she has on hand.

Hampton, who works with preschoolers, credits her parents for allowing her to learn to cook by doing. “My grandmother was a great baker, but it was my parents who allowed me the freedom to experiment. I had some good-sized disasters. It was great to have someone at my shoulder teaching, but also someone giving me independence in the kitchen,” she said.

Hampton has been married for two years to her husband, Jeff, who accompanied her to the finals. “I was totally surprised to be a finalist. It was wonderful to see the range of people, all ages and so many pretty cookies,” she said. She’s already planning what to enter in the contest next year. “Jeff has some family recipes I’m thinking about,” she hints.

Family: Phyllis Bustillos, Alvarado

First-time entrant Phyllis Bustillos, 55, of Alvarado certainly epitomizes family, the category she won, when it comes to baking. The avid cook is the mother of two other entrants in this year’s contest, Brenda, 33, who garnered second and third place in the Decadent and Bar categories, respectively, and Sheila, 31, also a finalist.

Children in the Bustillos family are invited into her kitchen to help “as soon as we can pull up a highchair for them to sit next to the counter,” she said. Her current crew of helpers includes: Gabriel, 13, Calley, 8, Sophia, 6, Jameson, 6, Kieran, 5, Lucas, 5, and Ava, about to turn 3.

Bustillos and her husband, Simon, host an annual family party in mid-December at which the children are invited to decorate oversize gingerbread cookies. The tradition recalls the 10-inch-tall cookies her mother made every year for her classmates when Bustillos was in elementary school.

She entered the contest this year to accompany her daughters. “Whenever I can spend time with them, it’s nice,” she notes. For this winner, family time is the best prize of all.

Cookie Man: Suzanne Cravens, Coppell

Talented Suzanne Cravens, 56, of Coppell won the Cookie Man category for the third year running with a petite gingerbread cowboy, an idea she had three years ago but set aside in favor of a sock-monkey theme in 2011. The recent return of Big Tex to the State Fair of Texas prompted her to revive the idea, naming the cookie Little Tex.

“I try for a design that is cute, has personality and will grab the imagination,” she said. “It should have dimension, lending itself to different textures.”

Cravens has a very creative family. In addition to cooking and baking, she loves needlepoint and recently took a quilting class with her daughters Kendall, 23, and Mallory, 21. She learned to sew in high school home economics class, and compares creating cookie designs to drafting patterns. “I plan it in layers,” she explained.

For her design this year, Cravens played around quite a bit with extruders and even borrowed her husband Gary’s wood-whittling tools to cut and shape Little Tex’s fondant components. For inspiration, she follows social media sites and looks for artistic themes in online sources such as Etsy, Minted and Shutterfly. She already has an idea in mind for next year.

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